Tepid sunlight filtered through the blinds, and even though it was December, Theo's bedroom filled with a warm glow. Hermione had been awake for hours, after being jolted awake just before sunrise by the sound of the front door slamming closed. She'd been awake to hear Blaise fumbling around in the shower that morning and to hear Theo whistling while he cooked breakfast. Despite the hollow pang in her stomach, she couldn't bring herself to leave the comfort of the fresh linens. She pulled her blanket tighter over her shoulders and shifted so she was laying her side, facing the window. Through the slats in the blinds, she could see the neighbors leaving their homes, rushing out the door on their way to work, blissfully unaware of the supernatural dangers all around them.
Were any of their neighbors wizards? Hermione wondered. She had no point of reference for wizarding demographics. For all she knew, half of Britain's population were magical.
She flexed her fingers before clamping them around the folds of the pilled blanket. She found that when her fingers were busy, it was easier to keep them from bursting into sparks. It didn't do much, however, to keep the window from occasionally opening on its own, letting bursts of cold air cloud the bedroom and penetrate her skin. At first, Hermione hadn't even realized it was her doing—merely the result of a windy night on and an old building. After she awoke shivering for the third time in the middle of the night, she knew it couldn't have been the wind.
Did Blaise, Theo, and Draco feel like this? Perpetual, debilitating electrical impulses right beneath the skin, just aching to explode? Had any of them had a mishap as horrific as hers before they went to their wizarding school?
She flipped onto her other side, turning away from the window. Her mind wandered to her parents. They must have returned from their dinner late last night, a bit tipsy. Were they looking for her? Or had they accepted that she had been killed in the fire? She imagined the fire department arriving at the scene, perplexed by the fact that there didn't seem to be any plausible explanation for the fire: no faulty wiring, no gas leak, no problems with the fuse box.
The heat in her veins intensified as she felt tiny needles prick at the corners of her eyes. She pulled the duvet from her shoulders and stood, leaving the warmth of the blankets before shifting her attention to the bookshelf in Theo's bedroom. She didn't recognize any of the titles. Quidditch Through the Ages. Hermione didn't know what quidditch was, and though she felt a tinge of curiosity, she knew there must be a better introduction to the Wizarding World. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. More promising, if a bit specific. Secrets of the Darkest Art. Intriguing, but she needed something basic. A History of Magic. That was the one. It was the thickest on the shelf, so it would hopefully keep her occupied until the boys inevitably booted her from their home. Perhaps they'd even let her keep a book or two.
A knock sounded on the door. Hermione jumped She hastily set the tome back on the shelf and returned to perch on the edge of the bed.
Theo poked his head in. "Hey. Are you hungry?"
She opened her mouth to decline. They had opened their home to her, after all. It seemed rude to ask for anything more, but it seemed she would be here indefinitely. She couldn't deny her hunger for much longer. After resetting the blanket so it appeared neat enough, she followed Theo to the kitchen, where Blaise sat, reading a newspaper. On the front cover, a black and white photograph of a grotesque, serpentine man leered at Hermione. She faltered at the sight of him moving, his tongue swiping across his top lip in the moving photograph.
Blaise set the newspaper facedown when he saw her enter and gestured to the plate beside him. She nearly tripped into the seat at the sight of a full English breakfast, complete with black pudding. She shoved the toast in her mouth, not bothering to savor the first bite. Although she had eaten the day before, something about committing arson and fleeing the scene had left her famished.
"Here," Theo said after she had devoured half of her plate. He handed her a supple, crooked stick. "It's from Malfoy's stash, so I don't know how well it will work for you, but it's better than nothing."
"He has plenty," Blaise said into his coffee cup. "Odds are one of them will work fine."
Hermione turned the wand over in her hand. The wood was rough between her fingers. Blaise and Theo's wands sat between them on the table: longer and more elegant than hers. Blaise's was dark and smooth, while Theo's was lighter with symbols etched up and down the length. Runes of some sort. If she were a pureblood, she supposed, perhaps she would have had the opportunity to choose her own wand, rather than getting whatever training-wheel, hand-me-down Draco had been willing to give up.
Wondering was pointless, she reminded herself. This was the way things were, and if what these boys—wizards—had told her was true, she needed to get that through her head if she wanted to survive. "What do I do with it?" Her breakfast sat in front of her, half-eaten and forgotten. Power undulated in her bones and anxiety rushed through her veins; her first chance to do magic on purpose. The first time her abilities would be completely in her own control.
"Start simple," Theo said, picking up his own wand. "Move your wand like this-" He drew a mountain in the air, "-and say Lumos." He demonstrated, and the tip of his wand lit like the end of a match. Bright enough to catch someone's attention, maybe enough to read a book in the dark, but not bright enough to light an entire room.
Hermione took a deep breath. The magic pounded in her ears, rushing like blood. "Lumos." Blinding light exploded the end of her wand. Instinctively, she squeezed her eyes shut and let the wand clatter to the floor. The moment it left her grasp, the light extinguished. "Sorry," she muttered as she bent to pick it up and set it back on the table.
Blaise rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. "This is going well."
"It'll be fine," Theo snapped. "Keep working on that spell. To turn it off, say Nox, and invert the motion."
Hermione lifted her wand. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Blaise cover his eyes. "Lumos." The light was still brighter than Theo's. Hermione had to squint, but it no longer felt as though she was looking into the sun. "Nox."
Theo took a breath. "Good," he said. "Better."
She examined her hands. It didn't stand to reason that they were where the power came from, but that's how it felt. Like the power lived and breathed in her palms. Like she could create and destroy as easily as snapping her fingers.
She clenched her fists. Destruction shouldn't be that easy. "Where is Draco, anyway?" she asked.
"Work." Blaise folded the newspaper, placing the moving photograph of the man with no nose face down against the table. Does it still move when no one's watching?
She sniffed. Draco didn't strike her as the type of person who worked, especially at their age. She knew boys like him: boys who would spend their twenties traveling Europe and collecting advanced degrees from pretentious universities on their parents' dime until they were experts in their field, but had no concrete experience. "What does he do?"
Theo and Blaise exchanged a fleeting look. Blaise buried his nose back in the newspaper, while Theo pointed to her wand. "Try again."
She rolled her eyes but obeyed. "Lumos." This time, the soft light at the tip of her wand matched Theo's. "Nox." It wasn't clear whether the wand had acclimated to her, or if she was getting used to wielding her power. Either way, her magic was satiating, and she was pleased to have a productive and harmless outlet to practice. She was not, however, pleased with the lack of answers she had received thus far. "Do either of you work?" she asked.
Blaise and Theo exchanged diffident looks. "It's complicated."
It's a yes or no question. If they didn't want to share personal details, Hermione wouldn't push, but she refused to leave the conversation more confused than when it started. "Who's Voldemort?" she asked, though with how quick Blaise's fingers were to fold the paper, Hermione suspected she didn't need an answer. "I heard Draco mention the name yesterday." She moved a piece of bacon around her plate, wishing she had a cup of tea to wash it down, but not wanting to take advantage of their hospitality.
"He's our... governmental leader, for lack of a better word," Blaise explained, reclining in his chair and gesturing to the newspaper. Hermione hesitantly picked it up and unfolded it. The serpentine man stared right back at her. His slitted eyes seemed to puncture through the paper. She read the headline. Ministry of Magic Releases New List of Banned Books.
"Banning books? Isn't that a bit dystopian?"
"Are you surprised?" Blaise asked. "Last night, we told you he'd enslave and torture you if he ever got his hands on you." He sank his teeth in a sausage link, as if the words enslave and torture didn't bother him at all.
"Oh, is that all he'd do?" she muttered as he reached for the newspaper. As he folded it up again, she caught a final glimpse of Voldemort's tongue flicking across his lips.
"Why don't we save the You-Know-Who talk for another day?" Theo asked. "All you need to do right now is focus on the spells-"
Right then, the door slammed open, and Theo's mouth fell closed. Draco strode in, his hair sticking up in all different directions. "You're home early," Theo observed. "It's not even noon."
"Slow day," he said, loosening the black tie around his neck. Without stopping to chat, he continued to his bedroom and slammed the door.
The trio at the table fell silent, while Theo and Blaise engaged each other in a staring contest. Hermione wondered how often Draco had these mood swings.
Theo jerked his head toward the door and jabbed a finger at Blaise, who pinched his lips together before shouting, "How's Pansy?"
"Pissed that I told her she couldn't come over!" A hollow thud sounded and echoed through the apartment.
Blaise flinched at the noise.
"Try again," Theo hissed.
Blaise shrugged and returned to his breakfast.
With an exaggerated sigh, Theo placed both palms on the table. "I'll be right back."
Hermione leaned back on her chair, nibbling on a piece of bacon as he disappeared into the corridor.
Blaise watched Theo's exist with the ghost of a triumphant smirk on the corners of his lips. When Theo was gone, he leaned forward, eyes hooded. "So, Voldemort?"
Hermione's breath shallowed, and she suddenly wasn't sure she wanted to know anything else about the Wizarding World. Repeating Lumos and Nox could be enough to keep her from burning another house down. She could go home, help her parents rebuild, live a life hiding in plain sight. But when she curled her fingers around the hand-me-down wand and felt the equilibrium between her hand, the wand, and her power, she felt that sense of control she so craved.
She needed more. "Tell me," she whispered.
"Voldemort thinks of himself as a god, so he runs our government like some sort of perverse religion. A cult might be the most accurate word." Hermione's tongue went dry. "He demands worship and sacrifice, and that means payment."
Feeling returned to the tips of her fingers, but she didn't allow her shoulders to relax. "Like... taxes?" She hated how naive the question sounded, even to her own ears.
"It's called a Tithe. Some people pay money, others have to give up their possessions or their services, some pay in blood or knowledge or prison sentences."
Hermione recoiled. Her stomach churned. Four pieces of bacon on top of all of her eggs may have been a mistake. "Blood? What use does he have for blood?"
His dark skin had grown ashen. "It's not about usefulness, it's about exerting every degree of psychological control over us that he can. It's the price we pay for living in a world without Mudbloods." He flinched as the word escaped his lips. "Sorry."
She shrugged it off. She had gathered it was a rude word for a Muggle-born wizard, but other than that, the word held no significance to her. "What's your Tithe?"
"He wanted my ancestral home. As far as tithes go, it could be worse. At least Draco opened up this apartment to me, so I'm not homeless, but after my parents died, that estate held everything left of them. All their belongings; all my memories. I won't ever be allowed to return."
Hermione furrowed her brow. "He won't even let you visit?"
Blaise shook his head. "He uses it as a base for his army—calls them the Death Eaters." The sound of the name left her ears ringing. "My parents never joined him, no matter how many times he tried to force them to. If he couldn't subjugate them in their lives, he'd tarnish their memory after their deaths." He drew a circle on the table with his fingers, keeping his eyes anywhere but Hermione's face. "Trespassers aren't allowed on the bases, so unless I want to dedicate my life to serving his crusade, I'm forbidden from entering."
"I'm sorry." The fragile sentence rang hollow. No words could satisfy the ache she imagined he was feeling; she felt the same one. They had both lost their families, and neither would be permitted to find solace in their fleeting memories. "Has no one tried to stage a coup?"
"Careful," Draco said from the threshold to the kitchen. He had changed from his dress clothing into a gray long-sleeved t-shirt and dark jeans, and he'd combed his hair, so it fell neatly to his ears. "Talk of revolution isn't taken lightly in some crowds."
"It's just us," Hermione said, gesturing to the otherwise empty apartment. She had expected Theo to be close behind him, but he never emerged from the hallway.
Draco nodded the window. "There tends to be a lack of trust in my circle of friends and colleagues. They have, on multiple occasions, unexpectedly dropped by to make sure I'm not committing this very act of treason. Muffliato." He pointed his wand at the window. "Proceed."
Blaise let out a short breath. "There's a small resistance, called the Order of the Phoenix, but their numbers are dwindling every day."
"Not to mention the fact that Voldemort is essentially immortal," Draco said. With a wave of his wand, he heated a water kettle and poured it into two mugs. "It doesn't do much to subdue the god complex. Do you take milk and sugar in your tea?"
Hermione's eyes bounced between Blaise and Draco, unsure whom he was addressing. But his cloudy eyes were trained right on her. "Just milk, thank you," she said, taken aback by his manners, considering not twelve hours ago, he had threatened to kill her.
Maybe the tea was poisoned.
When he set the steaming mug before her, she waited for him to sip his first. He did so with an amused expression, as though he knew exactly what she was thinking. Hesitantly, she lifted the mug to her lips, savoring the sweet burn on the roof of her mouth. A perfectly fine cup of tea. Theo must have talked some sense into him. She took another sip. "How does one become immortal?"
"No one knows," Blaise said.
"Surely there's a way to find out."
"I suppose there is. Which is why I expect he's banning books like-" Blaise flipped the newspaper over. "-Secrets of the Darkest Art." Hermione leaned forward, recalling the title from Theo's bookshelf. "Do we have that one, Draco?"
"Never heard of it," Draco responded without looking up.
Hermione smiled into her cup. A coup might not have been possible, but wars always began with quiet acts of rebellion. Of that much, Hermione was capable. After all, her existence in and of itself was an act of revolution.